What do you think?
Rate this book
What Beckoning Ghost
"A mystery that begins with the 1940 disappearance of a British submarine. The mother of the sub's commander claims to have met and talked with her son in the form of a ghostly apparition some months later in Hyde Park. A vagrant allso sees this meeting and, seven years later he is found drowned. Harvey Tuke, a sherry connoisseur, Mephistophelean look-alike and the rudest man in the Department of Public Prosecutions, becomes involved after he witnesses the strange behavior of remarried wife of the 'dead' commander at a party he is attending"
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1947
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 31, 2025
The second apparition...
When the body of Wally Whichcord is fished out of the Thames, it inspires a tabloid journalist to resurrect a story from seven years earlier, when Wally had been the second witness to a ghostly apparition. The journalist knows that Wally had been telling people that he’d seen the ghost again recently, in the same place in Hyde Park where Wally often slept rough. Is the ghost a warning of doom, the journalist speculates? A couple of days after this story appears, Harvey Tuke, a legal assistant to the Department of Prosecutions, attends a dinner party held by an acquaintance of his wife, Yvette. Corinne Reaveley lives with her husband Clifford in the house she inherited from the woman who was the first witness to the original ghost sighting, Mrs Demarest – the ghost was Mrs Demarest’s son, killed in WW2, who had come to tell her to look after Corinne to whom he had been engaged before the war. Miss Plimsoll, Mrs Demarest’s companion of many years, is at the dinner party too, and relates the old story of the ghost to Tuke while the other guests play bridge. Next day Corinne is also found dead in the Serpentine…
This one has fairly middling ratings from the very few people who’ve rated it, but I enjoyed it quite a lot. The style is a little dated for sure, but then that’s part of the pleasure of vintage crime. I think the major problem people have found with it is that the possible solutions are limited to just a couple of options. But it’s not really a whodunit – it’s more of a howdunit. Specifically, if one discounts the intervention of an actual ghost as Harvey Tuke is inclined to do, then how did the apparition manage to appear and disappear on more than one occasion? And how did it fool the old lady into believing it was her son? The question of why is more obvious, since the old lady was wealthy and her son was her only obvious heir, so with him dead her money was up for grabs, so to speak. Howdunits are not usually my kind of thing, but Browne uses his London setting – the Serpentine and the parks through which it runs – well to create a sense of mystery and tension and even creepiness at points. The house too is nicely Gothic, with odd shaped rooms darkly decorated and gloomily lit. No widgets are involved in the solution – no contraptions that would baffle a stage magician. When the how is revealed it makes perfect sense and allows for a very good thriller climax in a part of London that most Londoners will go through their lives unaware of. I’m being deliberately vague, because to explain further would spoil the mystery.
I understand Harvey Tuke was Browne’s series detective, and he’s an enjoyable character. Physically he bears a resemblance to Mephistopheles, which helps him to lightly bully the truth out of reluctant witnesses, but at heart he’s a kind man and his wife Yvette softens his occasional rudeness. In this one he has a kind of semi-jocular double-act with Sir Bruton Kames, the Director of Public Prosecutions. I don’t know whether he also appears in Browne’s other books but I hope so – they’re a fun duo, clearly long-standing friends who express their affection mostly through being rude to each other which adds quite a lot of humour and also gives some insight into the characters of the two men. Among the people at the dinner party, who soon become the pool of suspects, there’s a good mix of nice and not so nice people, and the reader soon develops sympathy for a couple of the characters, one of whom will then, of course, be put in peril to ramp up the tension. There’s a touch of romance – just enough for the reader to hope for some kind of happy ending for at least a couple of the characters.
I loved the contrast of the enjoyable interactions between the characters with the atmospheric picture Browne creates of his chosen part of London. I thought he did a very good job of making me care about the characters who deserved to be cared about, while despising those who deserved to be despised. I enjoyed the ambiguity around Corinne – was she involved in the original ghostly apparition or not? And I thought the thriller aspect in the last section was very well done. So overall, though I wasn’t at all surprised by the identity of the murderer in the end, I still very much enjoyed the process of getting there. I hope I can track down more of the series, but his books seem to be almost entirely out of print. Come on, publishers! 4½ stars for me, so rounded up.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
When the body of Wally Whichcord is fished out of the Thames, it inspires a tabloid journalist to resurrect a story from seven years earlier, when Wally had been the second witness to a ghostly apparition. The journalist knows that Wally had been telling people that he’d seen the ghost again recently, in the same place in Hyde Park where Wally often slept rough. Is the ghost a warning of doom, the journalist speculates? A couple of days after this story appears, Harvey Tuke, a legal assistant to the Department of Prosecutions, attends a dinner party held by an acquaintance of his wife, Yvette. Corinne Reaveley lives with her husband Clifford in the house she inherited from the woman who was the first witness to the original ghost sighting, Mrs Demarest – the ghost was Mrs Demarest’s son, killed in WW2, who had come to tell her to look after Corinne to whom he had been engaged before the war. Miss Plimsoll, Mrs Demarest’s companion of many years, is at the dinner party too, and relates the old story of the ghost to Tuke while the other guests play bridge. Next day Corinne is also found dead in the Serpentine…
This one has fairly middling ratings from the very few people who’ve rated it, but I enjoyed it quite a lot. The style is a little dated for sure, but then that’s part of the pleasure of vintage crime. I think the major problem people have found with it is that the possible solutions are limited to just a couple of options. But it’s not really a whodunit – it’s more of a howdunit. Specifically, if one discounts the intervention of an actual ghost as Harvey Tuke is inclined to do, then how did the apparition manage to appear and disappear on more than one occasion? And how did it fool the old lady into believing it was her son? The question of why is more obvious, since the old lady was wealthy and her son was her only obvious heir, so with him dead her money was up for grabs, so to speak. Howdunits are not usually my kind of thing, but Browne uses his London setting – the Serpentine and the parks through which it runs – well to create a sense of mystery and tension and even creepiness at points. The house too is nicely Gothic, with odd shaped rooms darkly decorated and gloomily lit. No widgets are involved in the solution – no contraptions that would baffle a stage magician. When the how is revealed it makes perfect sense and allows for a very good thriller climax in a part of London that most Londoners will go through their lives unaware of. I’m being deliberately vague, because to explain further would spoil the mystery.
I understand Harvey Tuke was Browne’s series detective, and he’s an enjoyable character. Physically he bears a resemblance to Mephistopheles, which helps him to lightly bully the truth out of reluctant witnesses, but at heart he’s a kind man and his wife Yvette softens his occasional rudeness. In this one he has a kind of semi-jocular double-act with Sir Bruton Kames, the Director of Public Prosecutions. I don’t know whether he also appears in Browne’s other books but I hope so – they’re a fun duo, clearly long-standing friends who express their affection mostly through being rude to each other which adds quite a lot of humour and also gives some insight into the characters of the two men. Among the people at the dinner party, who soon become the pool of suspects, there’s a good mix of nice and not so nice people, and the reader soon develops sympathy for a couple of the characters, one of whom will then, of course, be put in peril to ramp up the tension. There’s a touch of romance – just enough for the reader to hope for some kind of happy ending for at least a couple of the characters.
I loved the contrast of the enjoyable interactions between the characters with the atmospheric picture Browne creates of his chosen part of London. I thought he did a very good job of making me care about the characters who deserved to be cared about, while despising those who deserved to be despised. I enjoyed the ambiguity around Corinne – was she involved in the original ghostly apparition or not? And I thought the thriller aspect in the last section was very well done. So overall, though I wasn’t at all surprised by the identity of the murderer in the end, I still very much enjoyed the process of getting there. I hope I can track down more of the series, but his books seem to be almost entirely out of print. Come on, publishers! 4½ stars for me, so rounded up.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
July 8, 2018
This is one of 100 books mentioned in Martin Edwards' forth coming book - The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books. I will partially paraphrase Edwards introduction of the story as there isn't a summary of this book's storyline either in this profile or in any reviews.
'The Body of a man in his sixties is discovered in the Serpentine at Hyde Park. The deceased is wally Whichcord, who had achieved notoriety seven years earlier as an independent witness to a sighting of the Hyde Park Ghost. During an air raid in 1940, a bereaved mother whose son Felix Demarest, had died when his submarine was lost with all hands claimed to have encountered his ghost, wearing naval uniform, in Hyde Park. In her grief, Mrs Demarest had turned to spirtualism, and consulted a medium of questionable reputation, but her story was supported by a companion (Miss Plimsoll), as well as Whichcord, who was sleeping rough nearby. And shortly before his death, Whichcord claimed to have seen the ghost again.
In the wake of the tragedy, Harvey Tuke, a senior official with the Director of Public Prosecutions, accompanies his wife Yvette to a dinner party. The host and hostess, Clifford and Corinne Reaveley, live in an eccentrically designed home which Corinne had inherited from the late Mrs. Demarest which is situated just across the road from Hyde Park. Present at the party is Ms Plimsoll the only surviving person to have seen the Hyde Park Ghost. Tempers fray and as Corinne abandons her party, the guests know it's time to leave - however, Tuke begins to speculate about the puzzling tensions he has detected during the evening as well as the mystery of the ghost'.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book up until 4-5 pages before the end. Browne writes easy flowing text and has an eye for characterisation which make reading this novel a real pleasure as his plot was relatively straightforward and the suspects easily dwindle down to just two by the half way mark of the book. So definitely a suitable book for cosy crime readers. Considering this book was published in 1947 (MacDonald & Co.) it highlights that women were moving into the professional careers - in this case the Pathologist was female. And also the more daring swearing word of 'Bastard' is used by one character several times thus helping to show how crime fiction moved with the times on what was socially acceptable or at least acceptable to a reading audience. While reading the section on an Inquest (which covers quite some chapters) I thought this would be just a reiteration of all the evidence so far (like Freeman Wills Croft annoyingly does) - however this wasn't the case as new items where added and the subject of the ghost avoided. Browne does add a fair few latin and french phrases and more than an adequate amount of unusual words - which to some readers could be irritating. I would have given this book 8 out of 10 - but because of the confusing denouement which is only given just over 4 pages at the end I am giving it 6.5 out of 10. The denouement could be read as this: person A committed the crime or that person B did or both A & B did - it fails miserably in explaining to the reader what the motive could be for the crime if B or A & B committed the crime which exasperated me as the book had been extremely readable until that point.
'The Body of a man in his sixties is discovered in the Serpentine at Hyde Park. The deceased is wally Whichcord, who had achieved notoriety seven years earlier as an independent witness to a sighting of the Hyde Park Ghost. During an air raid in 1940, a bereaved mother whose son Felix Demarest, had died when his submarine was lost with all hands claimed to have encountered his ghost, wearing naval uniform, in Hyde Park. In her grief, Mrs Demarest had turned to spirtualism, and consulted a medium of questionable reputation, but her story was supported by a companion (Miss Plimsoll), as well as Whichcord, who was sleeping rough nearby. And shortly before his death, Whichcord claimed to have seen the ghost again.
In the wake of the tragedy, Harvey Tuke, a senior official with the Director of Public Prosecutions, accompanies his wife Yvette to a dinner party. The host and hostess, Clifford and Corinne Reaveley, live in an eccentrically designed home which Corinne had inherited from the late Mrs. Demarest which is situated just across the road from Hyde Park. Present at the party is Ms Plimsoll the only surviving person to have seen the Hyde Park Ghost. Tempers fray and as Corinne abandons her party, the guests know it's time to leave - however, Tuke begins to speculate about the puzzling tensions he has detected during the evening as well as the mystery of the ghost'.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book up until 4-5 pages before the end. Browne writes easy flowing text and has an eye for characterisation which make reading this novel a real pleasure as his plot was relatively straightforward and the suspects easily dwindle down to just two by the half way mark of the book. So definitely a suitable book for cosy crime readers. Considering this book was published in 1947 (MacDonald & Co.) it highlights that women were moving into the professional careers - in this case the Pathologist was female. And also the more daring swearing word of 'Bastard' is used by one character several times thus helping to show how crime fiction moved with the times on what was socially acceptable or at least acceptable to a reading audience. While reading the section on an Inquest (which covers quite some chapters) I thought this would be just a reiteration of all the evidence so far (like Freeman Wills Croft annoyingly does) - however this wasn't the case as new items where added and the subject of the ghost avoided. Browne does add a fair few latin and french phrases and more than an adequate amount of unusual words - which to some readers could be irritating. I would have given this book 8 out of 10 - but because of the confusing denouement which is only given just over 4 pages at the end I am giving it 6.5 out of 10. The denouement could be read as this: person A committed the crime or that person B did or both A & B did - it fails miserably in explaining to the reader what the motive could be for the crime if B or A & B committed the crime which exasperated me as the book had been extremely readable until that point.
November 2, 2018
...Mr. Tuke had gratuitously meddled (to quote the Director again) in conundrums which came his way out of office hours. A taste for meddling was thus perhaps whetted. He himself liked to call it a flair.
In March of 1940, a British submarine commanded by Lieutenant Demarest was lost in the North Atlantic. There were no survivors. But months later, Demarest's mother embraces spiritualism and, in an effort to make contact with her heroic son, she begs the medium to prove visitations real. She is rewarded with a chance to talk with her son one night on the edges of Hyde Park. The ghostly seaman is seen by Wally Whichcord, a tramp who often sleeps in the wooded area of the park.
Now, seven years later, Lady Demarest is dead, but Whichcord has reportedly seen the lieutenant's ghost again in the same place. Two weeks after this sighting, the tramp is found drowned in the shallow waters of the Serpentine. The death is a puzzle--it doesn't look like accident because there's no evidence that he slipped and knocked himself out. And it doesn't look like suicide--he'd bragged to his sister that he expected to come into a bit money to get him back on his feet. So, that leaves only murder. But who would want to murder an old tramp?
That's where Harvey Tuke, the rudest man in the Department of Public Prosecutions" and the man who looks like a modern Mephistopheles, comes in. His wife has dragged him to a dinner paryt given by Corinne Reaveley (ex-fiancee of Demarest and currently married to Clifford Reavely, civil engineer). Tuke fully expects to be bored out of his mind and plied with bad sherry. He's pleasantly surprised to find the bottles on offer to be excellent and a whiff of mystery in the air. Tensions are already high around the dinner table, but one of the guests brings up the death of Whichcord Corinne takes far more exception to the topic than one would expect. This is followed later by his hostess slamming her way out of the house. When Corinne is found drowned as well, Tuke can't resist getting involved even though the case hasn't been referred to his department yet. He soon finds himself caught up in a bizarre case revolving around the tangled family affairs that have led to intrigue and murder--and which leads him on a deadly chase that ends in the gloomy underground sewers of London.
Harvey Tuke, though known as the rudest man in his department, is actually a delightful character. He has quite a way of getting information out of people who don't want to give it--either through being "unaccountably" charming or by being rude and surprising them into saying things they don't intend. Either way, he's fascinating to watch in action. He also has an interesting relationship with his boss, Sir Bruton Kames. Kames, ostensibly deplores Tuke's penchant for meddling, but it is apparent that he secretly approves...especially if it gives him a chance to get in on the action as well. It's worth the price of admission just for the visual of the portly Kames squeezing himself down into the underground tunnels of the London sewer system.
The solution of the mystery is fairly straightforward, but Browne's style and the vivid portrayal of the London of the time period carries the reader over any possible disappointment resulting from not being properly mystified. A very entertaining, comfortable vintage mystery.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
In March of 1940, a British submarine commanded by Lieutenant Demarest was lost in the North Atlantic. There were no survivors. But months later, Demarest's mother embraces spiritualism and, in an effort to make contact with her heroic son, she begs the medium to prove visitations real. She is rewarded with a chance to talk with her son one night on the edges of Hyde Park. The ghostly seaman is seen by Wally Whichcord, a tramp who often sleeps in the wooded area of the park.
Now, seven years later, Lady Demarest is dead, but Whichcord has reportedly seen the lieutenant's ghost again in the same place. Two weeks after this sighting, the tramp is found drowned in the shallow waters of the Serpentine. The death is a puzzle--it doesn't look like accident because there's no evidence that he slipped and knocked himself out. And it doesn't look like suicide--he'd bragged to his sister that he expected to come into a bit money to get him back on his feet. So, that leaves only murder. But who would want to murder an old tramp?
That's where Harvey Tuke, the rudest man in the Department of Public Prosecutions" and the man who looks like a modern Mephistopheles, comes in. His wife has dragged him to a dinner paryt given by Corinne Reaveley (ex-fiancee of Demarest and currently married to Clifford Reavely, civil engineer). Tuke fully expects to be bored out of his mind and plied with bad sherry. He's pleasantly surprised to find the bottles on offer to be excellent and a whiff of mystery in the air. Tensions are already high around the dinner table, but one of the guests brings up the death of Whichcord Corinne takes far more exception to the topic than one would expect. This is followed later by his hostess slamming her way out of the house. When Corinne is found drowned as well, Tuke can't resist getting involved even though the case hasn't been referred to his department yet. He soon finds himself caught up in a bizarre case revolving around the tangled family affairs that have led to intrigue and murder--and which leads him on a deadly chase that ends in the gloomy underground sewers of London.
Harvey Tuke, though known as the rudest man in his department, is actually a delightful character. He has quite a way of getting information out of people who don't want to give it--either through being "unaccountably" charming or by being rude and surprising them into saying things they don't intend. Either way, he's fascinating to watch in action. He also has an interesting relationship with his boss, Sir Bruton Kames. Kames, ostensibly deplores Tuke's penchant for meddling, but it is apparent that he secretly approves...especially if it gives him a chance to get in on the action as well. It's worth the price of admission just for the visual of the portly Kames squeezing himself down into the underground tunnels of the London sewer system.
The solution of the mystery is fairly straightforward, but Browne's style and the vivid portrayal of the London of the time period carries the reader over any possible disappointment resulting from not being properly mystified. A very entertaining, comfortable vintage mystery.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.
September 19, 2018
This was a very enjoyable Golden Age Mystery, featuring a sardonic lawyer, his blustering chief at the Department of Public Prosecution, a ghost and the sewers of London. So what's not to like?
Harvey Tuke is not too thrilled when his sociable wife drags him off to a dinner party at the Reavelry's. There are unpleasant undercurrents between their hostess Corinne, her husband, their old friend Cloverdale, and their housekeeper Kitty. The evening ends in social disaster when Corinne storms off to her bedroom, then out of the house. The next morning her body is found in a pond in Hyde park, an apparent suicide. At that point, Harvey becomes interested in the odd stories and coincidences around this family : seven years earlier, during WWII, Corinne's fiance was killed in action. Shortly after, three people claimed to have seen his ghost near Hyde Park, one of them a vagrant, who, incidentally, was also drowned in Hyde Park two days before Corinne.
Tuke cleverly makes sense of all these loose ends and red herrings, and the story ends with a highly atmospheric chase through the sewers and manholes of London. Even though the identity of the culprit was not a huge surprise, I give this book an extra star because of the originality of the story.
Harvey Tuke is not too thrilled when his sociable wife drags him off to a dinner party at the Reavelry's. There are unpleasant undercurrents between their hostess Corinne, her husband, their old friend Cloverdale, and their housekeeper Kitty. The evening ends in social disaster when Corinne storms off to her bedroom, then out of the house. The next morning her body is found in a pond in Hyde park, an apparent suicide. At that point, Harvey becomes interested in the odd stories and coincidences around this family : seven years earlier, during WWII, Corinne's fiance was killed in action. Shortly after, three people claimed to have seen his ghost near Hyde Park, one of them a vagrant, who, incidentally, was also drowned in Hyde Park two days before Corinne.
Tuke cleverly makes sense of all these loose ends and red herrings, and the story ends with a highly atmospheric chase through the sewers and manholes of London. Even though the identity of the culprit was not a huge surprise, I give this book an extra star because of the originality of the story.
Want to Read
May 13, 2025Synopsis: a British submarine disappears in 1940 and the mother of it's commander claims she has talked with her son's ghost. Tell me again?
August 23, 2015
Harvey Tuke, "the rudest man in the Department of Public Prosections," goes to a dinner party at the home of one of his wife's acquaintances. That's where he first hears the story of the Hyde Park ghost, who appeared to the former owner of the house after her son was lost at sea during World War II. The hostess, who had been engaged to the dead man, rushes off in a huff after drinking too much, and is not seen again until she's found drowned near one of the ghost's appearances. Well, the DPP doesn't deal in magic, but Tuke is not so sure that human cunning is not involved.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews